It gets aggravating trying to find the right registry keys sometimes. In order to resolve or prevent the error message about being logged in with temporary profile in Windows 7, the following Microsoft solution points to the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList that lists the subkeys of users that have logged in. Be sure to also remove any User folders as well, if they still exist.

I switched on my PC and when I entered my password to log in I was told that I was being logged in with a temporary profile because my real one was unavailable. Logging out and back in again appears

Source: Being logged in to Windows 7 with a temporary profile – Microsoft Community

The How-To Geek posted an excellent overview of slmgr, a tools used to modify and control Windows Licensing:

Windows activation is designed to be as foolproof as possible, so Microsoft’s graphical tools keep it simple. If you want to do something more advanced like remove a product key, force an online activation, or extend the activation timer, you’ll need Slmgr.vbs.

Source: How to Use Slmgr to Change, Remove, or Extend Your Windows License

What do you do, however, if Windows still comes up “Not Genuine” and will no longer rearm? Using a KMS server, this just shouldn’t happen, but in reality it occurs all the time. In the past, we have taken to wiping the machine and starting over, but recently I actually had two recently imaged machines do this!

I found out that in these two cases, I could actually use System Restore to take it back to a previous restore point before things went wrong! Please note that this will not always work, and I really did not expect it to work this time. The only conclusion I can come to is that an update did not properly apply and cause the issue to begin with.

At any rate, it might save someone some time.

The Default User profile contains settings that are copied over to each new profile during initial login. Here’s how to customize it.

In “Notes on UEFI SCCM Imaging for Windows 10” I pointed to the article “How to Customize Default User Profile for New Accounts in Windows 10“, which basically outlines how to do default user profile customization in Windows 10 using the Sysprep utility. As it turns out, you can use the same tool to do default user profile customization in Windows 7 as well, according to “Windows 7: User Profile – Customize During Installation“. Continue reading “Default User Profile Customization in Windows 7”